Announcements

What do we know about Haiti and Haitians? Perhaps only that: “Haiti, Haiti, – I have not been to any Haiti! They feed us well here too!” (“The Return of the Prodigal Parrot”).

Soon, only preschool children will remain in the women’s competition. After all, having looked at the composition of the Latvian Women’s Championship, one can only rejoice at the competition that arises from year to year.

I want to applaud standing up! 20 Estonian draughts players, not counting their parents and coaches, went to the European Championship in Russian draughts in Turkey. while Lithuanian and Latvian draughts players continued to express “russophobic accusations”  and inadequate demands to the entire world draughts community in their own correspondence with the support of the board of their federations.

The European Championship was held for men and women in a mixed system in 2 stages: the preliminary stage and the final stage. No more than three players from one country were allowed to enter the final stage.

After the European Draughts Championship in Turkey, it is unusual to come to completely wild conditions for the finals of the Latvian championship. And although the habit has long been a diagnosis, it still looks ridiculous.

The European Rapid Game Championship was held for men and women in a mixed system in 2 stages: the preliminary stage and the final stage. No more than three players from one country were allowed to enter the final stage.

Source: http://64-100.com/zaochnaya-shkola-po-shashkam-andreya-valyuka

Andrey Valyuk

• international grandmaster from Minsk
• world champion-1997, 2005, 2022
• the 2nd place winner of the world championship-2015
• European champion-2012
• the 2nd place winner of the European championship-2018

— Hello, Andrey! Please tell us about your correspondence school in draughts.
— Good afternoon, Ivan. The correspondence school in draughts is a course in draughts, it consists of 40 video tutorials and text materials. It is correspondence school — each student studies in his free time. If you take one lesson a week, the course is designed for 10 months

— An article about your correspondence school was published earlier at 64-100. Was it the first course? Tell us about it.
— In 2019-2020 I designed the first course in which collected the basic knowledge that, in my opinion, a master in draughts should possess.
The course turned out to be quite large, about 600 pages of text. This is about 2 textbooks.
Draughts consist of the knowledge that the player has and the ability to apply them.
In the first course of the ‘Correspondence School’ all the main types of positions that occur in the game are considered. And practical examples are shown.
When designing this course I made a small discovery. Basically the game is played around the fields located in the center of the board.
With the piece с5 — we see definite active structures.
With the piece d4 — these are ‘City Games’.
With the piece f4 — ‘frames’.
With the piece е5 — ‘Kukujev’s Gambit’.
Gambit positions and positions with the bindings from the ‘Bodyansky Game’ are also shown.
There are quite a lot of typical positions, and, of course, the master of the game should know them, know the techniques, see the subtleties, be able to correctly assess the situation on the board.
As a result, a course for draughts’ education has been designed.

— Who is this course suitable for?
— To complete the course you need to know the notation and have a minimum level of the 1st-2nd sports category. The course itself is an interesting adventure that will appeal to both young athletes and adults.

— Do you help with the studies?
— Of course, you can always ask any questions and get answers for the material to be mastered.

— What is the price of the course?
— The course is designed for 10 months, the price is 1200 Russian rubles a month, or 12 000 for the whole course. For those who have signed up for the course and started training the price does not change.

— Tell us about the second course.
— In 2021-2022, I designed the second course of the “Correspondence School”. It has a more practical focus. It contains interesting games that have been played in different years.
The history of draughts is an extraordinary adventure. And I tried to pick up the same games.
Now among young people there is mainly an opinion “everyone knows everything”. When checking it turns out that this is far from the case. The beauty of checkers is endless, and every time I was amazed of how much more you can see.
Here is a simple example. 2022, the last round of the Russian Championship. Nikolai Struchkov won a famous position from ‘Filippov’s Game’, which his opponent, Arseny Tsynov, did not recognize. But in 1973, even before I was born, the V. Chernyshevich — V. Barabashev game was played in the USSR championship, the ideas from which are still at the issue.

Or the position which is known as Cirik’s position (see the diagram), first appeared in the game of the match for the title of champion of the USSR in 1928 between Vasily Medkov and Vladimir Bakumenko. Both in the game and in the match there was something to see.

— What would you advise our readers?
— I have recently developed a good motto: “It’s never too late to learn and it’s always useful!”.
You can contact me and enroll in the Correspondence School courses by mail valiuk@rambler.ru or by phone.

— Thank you for your useful work, Andrey! We wish you further success in games and coaching!
— Thank you!